Tech Friday: Trying Perplexity.AI for better assistance

| June 14, 2024

After chatting with Brenda’s sisters and brother-in-laws about booking flights for a trip together, I mentioned that I was partial to Southwest Airlines. My brother-in-laws are both Delta fliers … and have a long history of booking business travel with the major airlines — I did feel as if I were ruffling feathers (text updates […]

A leftover Spring 2024 Vacation photo from Delray Beach, FL

| May 7, 2024

The sunsets across rural Ohio never really get old. I’ve driven home to Cincinnati this time of evening more times than I care to remember while coming home from NE Ohio … but those days are now behind me. This time it was returning from a spring vacation in April and I realized that there […]

Would you feel comfortable flying on this plane?

| August 2, 2023

Not my photo, but I’m not sure how comfortable the average passenger flying this “budget” airline (???) are when seeing the tape on the wing? Also while sitting on the back porch a little Praying Mantis came to visit (video below).

Airtravel in the US: The skies aren’t getting much friendlier

| May 13, 2023

Which airline do you fly most often? We had a bad experience last summer on AirCanada and probably won’t ever flight with them again … on the other hand, we fly Southwest all the time and thankfully didn’t fly during their “meltdown (click charts for larger).” Even after the December 2022 flightmare by Southwest Airlines, […]

The relatively new way to stow bags in airline overhead bins

| September 25, 2022

Finding enough overhead bin space for carry-on luggage is a problem for a lot of travelers who dislike checking bags, waiting at the carousel … or even worse, dealing with lost luggage. More and more airlines have or are updating their overhead bins to accommodate more carry-on luggage, but travelers have been slow to catch […]

A little tested and untested advice for flying on @SouthwestAir

| September 14, 2022

Read an interesting Washington Post article (PDF ReaderView archive) this past week discussing Southwest Airlines “open seating policy” and challenges in landing preferred seating without paying a premium – although, “the only way to guarantee an early boarding position is to pay,” wrote James Bikales. Still some of us make a game of trying to […]

Archive: Flying down and driving back from hurricane prep

| June 28, 2020

Flew on the airlines for the first time since COVID19 to Florida via Baltimore (photo BWI terminal above) last week and thankfully the flights and negotiating the airport was uneventful. Besides a computer glitch which backed up lines on check in, everything else went smoothly. It is yet to be seen if the rise in […]

Who really wants to fly ALONE with a 1-year old?

| March 11, 2018

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Try the “Revenue Management” tip when frequent flying

| February 25, 2018

For frequent long distance flyers, give this airline reservation travel tip a try … We have never bought an upper-class seat; if ever we’ve flown anywhere up front, we’ve used miles to upgrade from economy. If you want to do that, call reservations and drop the name “revenue management.” The reason is that revenue management’s […]

How many germs are passed around on airplanes?

| March 7, 2017

Interesting tidbits posted to Marketwatch … I’m thinking a "bottle of water" might be my request the next time I travel? Don’t get ice in your drink on an airplane From a flight attendant here: “Don’t get ice in your drink, don’t drink coffee, tea, or hot water on the plane and don’t touch anything […]

Air travel on the cheap. First flight on Frontier Airlines.

| July 11, 2015

It was a quick and inexpensive flight to Florida this past week to do a little tropical weather prep aboard Encore. Summer is the time of year that “commuter cruisers” double their line, remove sails and store an extra windage in case hurricane winds target the area … besides I really was looking forward to […]

Buy airline tickets 47 days in advance & on Tuesday afternoon

| June 17, 2015

Now I’ll be the first to admit, I spend too much time agonizing over purchasing things wondering if I’m buying the right model or brand … and am I paying too much. The Internet has only complicated matters since there is even more information to process. It’s the same thing when booking travel … although […]

Poor flight management by #Delta Airlines at Reagan National

| June 14, 2015

Somebody has had a lousy day of traveling … or is it two days? After 9 days in London, Taylor was up at 6AM UK time on Sunday to get to the airport for his flight back home. Because he had re-booked his ticket from CVG instead of leaving from Williston, ND, he ended up […]

Air travel and the annoyances of flying cattle class

| December 15, 2014

Expedia posted a lighthearted polling of what annoys airline passengers which got me thinking about what I notice and where I may offend. I already do my best to be overly attentive to most of these annoyances, but probably would rank “The Aromatic Passenger” as #1 followed by the “Back Seat Grabber” as my #2 […]

Big Data and Predictive Analysis when it comes to airfares

| April 22, 2014

A post on the FiveThirtyEight.com blog by Kaiser Fung this past weekend analyzed the prediction of airfares on Kayak (after the removal of Microsoft’s Bing Travel’s Farecast in January 2014), left me wondering if the days of successful Big Data’s Predictive Analysis are disappearing? According to my read on Fung’s selective airfare routes research, you […]

Can’t imagine airline seats getting much narrower …

| December 12, 2013

The more delays and longer the flight, the more cranky passengers are bound to get. Now imagine sitting in the middle seat of modified Airbus A320 as the scrunched seats get smaller and give up 3 more inches to the aisle seats? Oh, I’m sure those fortunate enough to book the wider seats, will be […]

Obama administration wants higher airline taxes

| May 28, 2013

Hard to believe that the already high price of air travel (20% is already in taxes) could go up another $14 per flight. May 27, 2013 — Another airfare increase may be on the way. But this time It has nothing to do with the airlines. The Obama administration has proposed raising the taxes on […]

Flying with frequent flyer miles

| May 9, 2013

An article in Thursday’s WSJ highlighted airline loyalty programs and just how easy it was to book a frequent flyer seat. The data collected by Switchfly Inc, looked for 2 seats on 14 round trip dates between June and October. The regular survey determined which airline made it the easiest to get the seat when […]

Losing your smartphone, e-reader, tablet or notebook computer

| April 28, 2012

Airlines say they are warehousing hundreds of iPads and other tablet computers and e-readers left behind by travelers. Carriers try to reunite the devices with their owners but are often thwarted by the lack of ID tags, password protection and Apple Inc.’s reluctance to track down owners based on serial numbers. — WSJ   Scott […]

How important is early boarding and securing carry on space?

| July 30, 2011

I read an aviation/travel article by Scott McCartney last week that reminded me of a post I made in June which dealt with booking flights and some of the changes we are all facing in air travel – well perhaps not elite travelers? From the sound of things, we’re in for a few more changes, […]

Thoughts on the “doing it yourself” of booking travel

| June 19, 2011

A friend of mine and I discussed buying tickets for a couple of upcoming trips which included flights and rental cars this past week and neither one of us were convinced we picked up the cheapest tickets or were able to find decent rates for renting a car in July. We bounced our shopping sites […]

Fatigue cracking on Southwest planes is a problem

| April 3, 2011

Citizen journalism was alive and well (‘alive’ being the appropriate word) this weekend as an emergency landing was made by a Southwest jet in Yuma Arizona. Shawna MalviniRedden, a blogger at The Bluest Muse, ‘tweeted’ comments and photos. Shortly after take off the Boeing 737 had a hole 5 foot long and 1 foot wide […]

Honor Flights: Great job American Airlines

| September 13, 2010

The American Airlines video brought back the memory of our “bus” Honor trip to Washington DC earlier this year. Great to know they support our heroes in this way. Thank to AA as well for their appearance at EAA Airventure and getting Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band to and from his tribute shows […]

How do airlines stack up when it comes to fuel efficiency?

| August 12, 2010

For personal transportation miles-per-gallon watchers, like many VW TDI drivers I know, an article in Thursday’s WSJ that translated US based airlines fuel efficiency into automotive MPG standards, might be of interest. In the past, frugal flyers may have looked at the numbers in order to save a buck, but now more and more travelers […]

Less inclusive airline travel and fees for additional services

| April 29, 2010

It has become challenging to fly commercial airlines in recent year, especially since 9/11. Not only has the process of going through most airports become time consuming with all the additional security precautions, but the airlines themselves have made changes which most agree have become irritating to down right miserable for passengers, I’m thinking about […]

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog